“She has a thing about knives,” Benji said under his breath.
Penny grabbed Teddy by his hand and tugged him away from the other boys.
“What if it landed on your head? Use your brain, Teddy,” Penny said, admonishing him.
Teddy swallowed. “You think it’s okay to build the fort here?” he whispered, so that the other boys wouldn’t hear him. He looked around with worried eyes.
This was typical Teddy. He was all fearless bravado when the boys were around, but when it was just the two of them, he let his fears show.
His real question hung in the air, unspoken between them. Teddy feared Caleb Devlin like they all did, but he was not like Benji Albright or Mac McHale. He was not scrappy. He was easily hurt and scared when out of the circle of their rough, confident influence.
“It’ll be fine, Teddy,” Penny said automatically.
She stared into the woods, squinting slightly, looking past the big fallen oak as the late afternoon sun cast dappled shadows, and she imagined she could see the brooding boy from the car, glaring at her with dead eyes, his skin gleaming with sweat and dirt, the heat rising off his body, the musky smell of danger. Caleb Devlin. She could almost see him standing there, leaning against the sturdy pine tree, grinding marijuana into his cheap rolling papers, inhaling deeply, taunting her, scaring her, scaring them all.
She blinked twice and he was gone.
Mac carried a pile of boards over to where Benji was hammering and dropped them at Benji’s feet. One of the boards hit Benji’s foot.
“You jerk,” Benji said, glaring at Mac. Fighting and bickering were a way of life with the boys, Penny knew. It wasn’t personal; it was just something they did.
Mac snickered. He loved a fight. But then he looked up, past Benji, and his smirk turned to a scowl. “Look who’s coming,” Mac said scornfully.
They spotted her way down the trail. It was Becky Albright, Benji’s six-year-old sister, a picture with her curly white-blond hair, robin’s-egg-blue eyes, and hand-smocked dress. She clutched a doll in her clean pink hands. Penny thought she looked like a china doll come to life.
Benji shook his head and gave a harassed-sounding groan. “Becky, go home.”
“I wanna go up in the fort,” she wailed.
“You’re too small,” Benji said, exasperated. “It’s not even finished. It’s just beams.”
Becky considered, looking up at the raw beams suspended in the trees. “But I wanna.”
“No way, Becky, get lost,” Benji said. Becky was the bane of Benji’s existence. “Don’t be a pain.”
“I’ll tell Mom you went to the range,” she threatened. “I saw!” Becky was no dummy; she knew all the right buttons to push.
“Yeah? Well, I’ll tell her you’re the one who spilled the ice cream on the living-room rug.”
“But I wanna go up,” she said babyishly.
“Tough,” Benji said. “Go home and stop spying on me.”
“Yeah, get out, bratty Becky,” said Mac.
And then all of them started shouting, “Bratty Becky, Bratty Baby Becky!” and she began to cry.
“C’mon, Becky,” Penny said, snatching the little girl’s hand. “I’ll take you home. Leave the boys alone.” Becky wasn’t so bad. She was just a little girl.
Penny led Becky out of the labyrinth of woods and up to the storm drain at the cul-de-sac where Becky promptly started crying harder, dramatically, knowing that Mrs. Albright was within hearing distance.
“Becky, don’t get them in trouble or they’ll never let you play with them,” Penny said in a low voice.
“They’re so mean to me! I hate them!” Her face was all red and sort of scrunched up. Penny understood why the boys wouldn’t let Becky play with them. It was like baby-sitting.
Penny wiped Becky’s nose and gave her a shove in the direction of her house, and then she started back up the block toward her own.
CHAPTER 3
That evening, Penny was sitting on the curb in front of her house with the guys, waiting for Oren to show up. Oren’s family always ate dinner late, at seven, so everyone had to wait until he was finished before embarking on any evening activities. Tonight they were going to play flashlight tag.
“This is such a pain,” Benji groused. “Why don’t they eat dinner at six like normal people?”
Mac grunted in a noncommittal way. He was using a stick to push around a frog that had been dead for some time. It was flat and looked a little crusty around the edges, as if it had been run over by a steam engine and then grilled on a barbecue. It didn’t smell so hot, either.
“How could someone run over a frog?” Penny asked, feeling a little queasy.
“My mom once ran over a turtle,” Mac said, looking across the street to where his mother was sitting on the Bukvics’ porch with Mrs. Albright and Mrs. Bukvic.
The three women were deep in conversation, glancing up occasionally to eye the kids. They were probably organizing the annual Fourth of July block party, Penny thought. The Fourth of July was a big deal on Mockingbird Lane. The day-long block party featured tons of food, kegs of beer for the grownups, and contests and games. They were all looking forward to it in a few short weeks.
Mrs. Bukvic was in charge of the block party this year, which was perfect because Mrs. Bukvic was probably the bossiest person on the block.
A police car drove slowly down the street.
“It’s the fuzz patrol,” Mac said under his breath, acting cool.
For a brief moment Penny worried that the police were coming to get them because someone found out they’d stolen wood from the skeet range.
The car slowed as it passed, and Officer Cox, a balding, round-faced man with splotchy red cheeks, leaned out the window and gave the kids a big smile.
“Hi, kids,” he said. “You guys keeping cool? Staying out of trouble?” His eyes lingered on Mac when he said “trouble.”
Mac gave a fake showy smile and said, in a syrupy voice, “Everything’s just swell, Officer.”
Officer Cox narrowed his eyes.
“Hi, Officer Cox,” Penny said, deflecting the attention away from Mac. Penny liked Officer Cox. He came to her school once a year and gave them lectures on being safe and about how they should never get into a car with strangers. He had a nice smile, a smile that said he was a trustworthy person.
“You having a good summer, Penny?” he asked, killing the engine.
“So far.”
Mrs. Bukvic came striding over, still wearing heels and a dressy blouse, her plump arms swinging, her little white toy poodle Buster yipping away at her heels. Mrs. Bukvic was a paralegal at a law firm, which was why until recently Amy had always spent afternoons after school at Penny’s house. But ever since Amy turned fourteen in December, she was allowed to stay at home by herself, and she ignored Penny completely.
Following behind Mrs. Bukvic were Mrs. Albright and Mrs. McHale.
“Why, hello, Officer Cox,” Mrs. Bukvic said sweetly, a tabloid reporter buttering up her victim.
“Ma’am “he said politely.
“And how is your sweet wife?” Mrs. Bukvic asked.
“Vicki’s fine, thanks for asking.”
“And little Jack?”
“Jack’s doing fine, too. Starting third grade next year.”
“Well, isn’t that lovely,” Mrs. Bukvic cooed. She turned to the other women. “Isn’t that just lovely, girls?” They made murmuring sounds of agreement.
Mrs. Bukvic lowered her voice. “Have you given any thought to that little problem I called you about?”
Officer Cox regarded her with a level gaze. “Unless there’s been a crime committed, there’s nothing I can do.”
“Typical,” Mrs. McHale muttered in disgust, shaking her head. Her curly hair was the same color as Mac’s, but on her it looked brassy. “Nobody did anything last time, either, and you remember what happened then!”
“And he’s definitely back,” Mrs. Bukvic said.
Mrs. Albright pressed forward, hands together. Benji’s mom was a petite woman, and sweet. She gave the lads big glasses of lemonade and homemade cookies when they went to her house. She was the opposite of Mrs. McHale, who was always on a diet and kicked the kids out of the house whenever she was dating a new man, which was all the time. She had once gone out with the Phys Ed teacher, which had infuriated Mac to no end.
“Everyone knows that Ruthie’s sick,” Mrs. Albright said reasonably. “They probably let him out to come visit her.”
Mrs. Bukvic nodded in a way that said she had the inside scoop. She looked around and whispered, dramatically, “Cancer.”
Officer Cox nodded wearily. “I can’t do a thing.”
The women eyed him with scorn. Buster yipped as if in agreement.
Mrs. Albright jockeyed forward and said, in a soft, urgent voice, “But these children play in the woods.” Her voice lowered a notch. “Caleb’s a dangerous boy.”
A warbling voice came over the car’s CB radio, and Officer Cox grabbed the mike desperately.
“Butch here,” he said. He listened for a moment, grunted. He turned to Mrs. Bukvic. “I appreciate your concern, and I’ll keep an eye on things, but that’s all I can do at this point.”
Mrs. Bukvic looked panicky. “But Officer Cox, it’s your job to protect us! You know what that boy is capable of!”
Butch Cox looked over at Penny and the boys perched on the curb, and seemed to shudder for a moment. Then he turned back to the mothers and said, with genuine regret, “I know, Betty Ann, but my hands are tied until—”
“Until that demon does something we’ll regret for the rest of our lives!” Mrs. Bukvic interjected hotly. She turned on her heel and stormed back to her house, her dog getting in one final yip before trotting after her.
Officer Cox started up his car and drove down around the cul-de-sac and back up the street, quickly, not even bothering to heed the stop sign at the corner.
The remaining mothers eyed the kids like a pair of wrathful goddesses.
Mrs. Albright wagged a finger at them all. “You kids are to stay out of those woods, and away from that creek.”
“But, Mom,” Benji protested.
“No way,” Mac said, immediately regretting his words.
Mrs. McHale looked at him sternly. “That goes for you, too, mister,” she said in a firm voice, her curls bobbing in emphasis. “Or else.”
Mac lowered his head like a beaten dog. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.
The women turned and walked back to their respective homes.
“Just great,” Mac hissed.
“Do we have to listen to your mom?” Teddy asked, confused. “She’s not our mom, right, Penny?”
Penny didn’t say anything. She was deeply shaken by the reactions of the other moms; it confirmed that her fears were well-grounded.
“This is what we get for waiting for Oren,” Mac muttered angrily.
Oren came skateboarding down the block. He ground the back of his board to a stop and flipped it up expertly. “What was that all about?” he asked.
Mac glared at him.
Penny had been having the same nightmare for years.
She’s running through the woods and there is a monster chasing her, right on her heels, so close she can feel his breath tickle the nape of her neck. But something holds her back, slows her down—something like Teddy, who can’t keep up with her because he’s too small, or Baby Sam, who is too heavy to carry, who she ends up half dragging along the forest floor, pine needles catching in his footie pajamas. The real nightmare becomes keeping Teddy or Sam with her and not abandoning them to the force chasing her, because without them she’d be able to run like the wind. She is that fast. But with her brothers, it is like she is running with cement shoes, every step hard; they hold her back. She wakes up just as the monster has almost reached her, just as she feels the cold dead tendrils creeping around her shoulders, trying to pull her down, drag her into the black depths.
Sometimes in the dream it’s a faceless boy who chases her through the woods, dogging her heels easily like a loping predator. In the worst ones he has a knife, a long sharp one, the kind she cut her finger with, and she can see it flashing in the gloom when she looks over her shoulder. She’s running down the narrow trail that leads toward the creek, and there he’ll be, right on her tail, his sinewy arm reaching for her, his cigarette breath hot on her cheek.
And then she would wake up, wanting to scream, flailing for the switch of her bedside lamp. Too scared to go back to sleep again, she would stay up until dawn reading comics until she knew for sure that nothing could hurt her here in this safe, warm house, in her pink room with the canopy bed, with Georgie the bear beside her.
Whenever she had these nightmares, Penny thought of Nana, of what she would say. Nana said that there were things no one could stop. Life was a force of nature, a hurricane, a riptide. The only thing you could do, Nana said, was look at the sky and watch out for storms and, of course, hope your roof didn’t blow away.
Nana told Penny these things at her house in Key West, with its wraparound porch infested by termites. She told Penny these things over sweet tea laced with honey as they sat on the swing watching the sunset, the famous Key West sunset. That was the best sunset, they said every time, no matter what.
Nana was old, nearly eighty, and everyone agreed that old Nana was sharp as a tack. Her hair was the color of tarnished pewter and her hands were gnarled with arthritis, but she always cooked a Key lime pie with meringue topping when Penny came to visit.
Penny went to Key West to stay with Nana every summer at the same time, the week before school started. Just Penny—not Teddy. “Just us girls,” Nana liked to say. No boys allowed.
Every morning when she was in Key West, the first thing Penny did was shake out her shoes. Nana told her to do this: shake out your shoes. Penny wondered about it, but Nana just shook her head, and said, “You’ll see, dear, you’ll see.”
One morning last summer, Penny was shaking out her shoes as usual when out plopped a shiny black scorpion. It waved its claws at her like a miniature demon, and Penny screamed. Nana came running, but by then it was gone, disappeared, under the old iron bed.
“See, Penny,” Nana said. “Scorpions like to live near you, where they can do you the most harm. You have to be careful. You have to think like a scorpion. You have to shake your shoes out.”
Penny was remembering all these things as she hid in the storm drain. The storm drain was at the end of the cul-de-sac, the lowest point on Mockingbird Lane. Underneath, there was a rectangular space large enough for several kids to stand up in. At the back a long corrugated pipe, big enough to crawl through, opened out into a gully in the woods near the Devlins’ house. The pipe had once had a grate on the end to keep out small animals—and children—but some enterprising teenagers had cut it off years ago. It was one of her favorite places—cool despite the summertime heat, redolent with the pungent smell of dried leaves. It was a perfect hiding place for flashlight tag; she’d been sitting there for nearly a half hour now, and no one had found her yet. She shifted her rear end on the corrugated metal grooves, trying to get comfortable.
Penny usually liked flashlight tag. It was a tradition of summer, like swimsuits and corn on the cob and fireflies. And she was good at it, maybe because she didn’t mind the dark, not like Teddy who was terrified, who had to go to bed with a night-light on and the door to his room opened a crack.
She flicked on her little flashlight and began sorting through the beer-can collection that lined the sides of the storm drain. It was Teddy’s. Penny sniffed a can, catching the acidy-sweet whiff of long-ago beer. She admired the florid paintings on the sides—the German castles and the huge-breasted women. She had no breasts to speak of herself, unlike Amy. The training bra her mother bought her sagged awkwardly in the front and rubbed the skin under her arms raw. She’d stuck it in the back of her sock drawer, out of sight, preferring to wear cotton undershi
rts that fit her like a second skin. She didn’t need sliding bra straps to remind the boys that she was a girl.
She shifted the cans around and then paused, a shiver running up her spine. Some of the cans were filled to the rim with fresh cigarette butts, and the Old Milwaukee can had been crushed and punctured by something sharp, like a knife. Had someone been down here? The boys didn’t smoke, and besides, this was her and Teddy’s secret place.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be down in the storm drain now, after dark. Especially since it was so close to Caleb’s house, right next to it, really. The storm drain had never been a scary place before, but now her thoughts were racing. What if there was a monster or rats or dead people down here? What if there was something even worse than monsters or dead people? Something that liked to smoke cigarettes and stab cans?
Something like Caleb.
Penny shivered and looked around, terrified now, her imagination racing a million miles a minute. What if Caleb was out there, in the dark night, just waiting to poke out her eye with a hunting knife? She was getting scared, so scared that when she heard a scraping sound at the top of the drain, a sort of shuffling, she just froze.
Someone was right above her. And she could smell cigarette smoke.
She crept backward on her hands and knees to the opening of the storm drain pipe. The woods loomed darkly before her, the moon casting watery shadows through the leafy trees, a breeze stirring restlessly through the hot summer night. She took a deep breath and bolted into the woods.
She had run about a hundred yards when she looked back and saw a shape appear out of the darkness like a wraith. As if sensing her presence, the figure stirred, and then plunged into the woods after her.
Penny didn’t think twice. She just ran.
She ran on feet made swift with terror, and with every step she heard something crashing through the brush behind her in the distance. Someone was chasing her. Normally sure-footed, Penny stumbled over plants and tree branches, fear making her clumsy. The woods were so dark she could barely see a step in front of her, the moon now obscured by the thick canopy of trees. She longed to flick on her flashlight but knew that she couldn’t—it would give her away.